career maturity: a priority for secondary educationspain, and a proposal for intervention to improve...

Career maturity: a priority for secondary education

Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology. ISSN. 1696-2095. No 16, Vol 6 (3) 2008, pp: 749 - 772 - 749 -

Career maturity: a priority for

secondary education

Manuel Álvarez González

Department of Educational Research Methods and Diagnostics,

University of Barcelona

Spain

Manuel Álvarez González. Universidad de Barcelona. Departamento MIDE. Paseo Valle Hebron, 171. 08035

Barcelona. Spain. E-mail: [email protected]

© Education & Psychology I+D+i and Editorial EOS (Spain)

mailto:[email protected]

Manuel Álvarez

- 750 - Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology. ISSN. 1696-2095. No 16, Vol 6 (3) 2008, pp: 749 - 772

Abstract

This study reviews the current state of career maturity in secondary education—a period of

education which is critical for development of this construct, when students are faced with

ongoing academic and occupational decisions over the course of their studies. This paper is

organized in three parts: first we focus on the concept, models, structure and development of

career maturity; second, diagnosis and assessment are given shape through the Cuestionario

de desarrollo de la carrera (CDC) and the Cuestionario de madurez para la carrera (CMC),

adaptations of Super’s CDI questionnaire and the CMI from Crites; and third, we discuss how

to improve intervention.

Keywords: Career maturity, instruments, diagnosis and evaluation, intervention, secondary

education.

Received: 03/12/08 Initial Acceptance: 03/12/08 Final Acceptance: 07/01/08



Resumen

En este trabajo se presenta una revisión de estado actual de la madurez para la carrera

en la educación secundaria, como uno de los constructos más importantes a desarrollar en esta

etapa educativa, que se caracteriza, entre otros aspectos, por las constantes tomas de decisión

académicas y profesionales, que el alumnado ha de afrontar a lo largo de estos estudios. Su

contenido se estructura en tres partes: una primera parte se centra en el concepto, modelos,

estructura y desarrollo de la madurez para la carrera; una segunda parte se concreta en su

diagnóstico y evaluación, a través del Cuestionario de desarrollo de la carrera (CDC) y el

Cuestionario de madurez para la carrera (CMC), adaptación de los cuestionarios CDI de

Super y CMI de Crites. Y una tercera donde se plantean algunas propuestas de mejora para la

intervención.

Palabras Clave: Madurez para la carrera, instrumentos, diagnóstico y evaluación, educación

secundaria, intervención.

Recibido: 12/03/08 Aceptación provisional: 12/03/08 Aceptación definitiva: 01/07/08

Manuel Álvarez


Introduction

The present study stems from an elaborate project which began in 1987 with

validation of the career maturity construct, and ended in 2007 with the presentation of two

instruments (CDC and CMC) for diagnosing and assessing career maturity.

The purpose of this study is to present the current state of the career maturity

construct, the validation of certain diagnostic and assessment instruments for the context of

Spain, and a proposal for intervention to improve career maturity.

The construct of career maturity (CM) has given a boost to the conception of

occupational guidance, understood as lifelong development of one’s career. Even though

career development is a lifelong process, in our case we focus on adolescence as a

maturational stage, which in turn corresponds to the period of secondary education. It is

precisely at this stage when CM undergoes greater development and progress, and it becomes

more necessary since the student must engage in academic decision-making processes which

have important repercussions for the future. Intervention for improving career maturity

becomes a requirement, especially as it pertains to career planning and decision making

processes.

This study has a three-part structure: the first part introduces us to the CM construct,

that is, the concept, its structure and development (models); the second part focuses on CM

diagnosis and assessment; and the third part makes proposals for improving CM. The overall

intent is to offer some assistance in clarifying, developing and intervening in career maturity.

Concept, structure and development of career maturity

Career Maturity (CM) has its roots in the conception of career development proposed by

Super (1951, 1963). Career choice is conceived as a series of events which take place in an

individual’s life. The process follows models which correspond to a person’s stage of life, and is

the result of psychological, physical and social factors which interact in the life of the individual.

After half a century of studies on CM, agreement has yet to be reached on the concept

and the most suitable model for explaining the CM construct. Studies began in the decade of the



50s, but not until the 70s and early 80s did the CM construct show its greatest development,

especially on the part of Super (1974); Super and Thompson (1979); Super et al. (1972, 1981)

and Crites (1971, 1973, 1978). These researchers can easily be considered the fathers of career

maturity.

Conceptualizing career maturity

Different authors have not agreed on how to conceptualize career maturity. Specifically,

for Super (1951, 1963), career maturity is the maturity which a person shows relative to their

developmental stage, that is, comparing the individual’s stage of maturity with his or her

chronological age. On the other hand, Crites (1968) compares a person’s maturity with others

who differ in age, but are in the same stage of maturity, for example, students in the exploratory

stage (15- 21 years).

Since the two authors did not agree, a symposium was organized in Montreal (1974) in

order to try to reach consensus on this concept. After much discussion, the experts attending the

Symposium redefined CM as one’s disposition to confront vocational or career development

tasks as they are encountered, as compared to others who are in the same stage of life and facing

the same developmental tasks.

In addition to contributions from Super and Crites, we must include work by Fouad

(1988); King (1989); Levinson, et al (1998); Luzzo (1993); Savickas (1984, 1994), and in our

country, Álvarez González (1989) and Álvarez González et al. (1990, 1995, 2007); Corominas

(1989); Salvador (1981); Secadas (1974) and others. All of these have contributed toward

defining CM as behaviors that a person manifests in the intent to carry out different career

development tasks, appropriate to each stage of maturity (Álvarez González, 1995, Álvarez

González et al. 2007).

Structure of career maturity

Just as the different authors have not reached agreement in conceptualizing career

maturity, the same can be said with regard to the structure of the construct. Fundamentally two

models emerge from the different conceptions:

Manuel Álvarez


The Super model (1961, 1974) which is structured in five dimensions or factors:

planfulness, resources for exploration, information, decision making and reality

orientation and 19 variables. The structure is the same for adolescence and for adulthood,

what varies are the content of each of the factors and the variables.

The Crites model (1965, 1971) has three levels: at the first level are the variables

(a total of 20); at the second, intermediate level are the four factors (consistency, realism,

competencies and attitudes) which group the variables; and the third level consists of the

degree of career development. This is a hierarchical model where significant, relatively

high correlations exist between variables within one factor, and moderate correlations are

found between variables in different factors.

Table 1 presents the structure of the Super and Crites models as discussed above. The

differences in structure can easily be observed.

Table 1. The main models of career maturity

Super (1951, 1974) Crites (1965, 1971)

1. Career planfulness:

. Distant future

. Intermediate future

. Present

2. Career exploration:

. Consultation

. Resources

. Participation

3. Information:

. Education and instruction

. Income requirements

. Duties

. Supply and demand

. Conditions

. Career advancement

4. Decision making:

. Principles

. Practice

5. Reality orientation:

. Self-knowledge

. Realism

. Consistency

. Crystallization

. Work experience

Degree of career development:

1. Consistency:

. Field

. Time

. Level

. Family

. Independence

2. Realism:

. Interests

. Skills

. Personality

. Social class

3. Competencies:

. Problem solving

. Planning

. Goal selection

. Self-appraisal

. Occupational information

4. Attitudes:

. Orientation

. Preferences

. Commitment

. Involvement



These models do not agree on the number of variables and factors which make up the

structure of career maturity; consequently, they become complementary, while we await new

reviews with further data that shed more light on the topic. Both models emerge from the Career

Pattern Study (CPS, 1951), although each has its specific characteristics and peculiarities which

differentiate it from the other.

Both Super’s and Crites’s structural models of career maturity have experienced

advances through ongoing research, but both are still subject to more revision as new data appear

in future studies. What has been demonstrated to date is that career maturity is a much more

complex construct that what was originally thought. In order to validate how well these models

match reality, inventories were constructed: Super’s Career Development Inventory (CDI) and

Crites’ Career Maturity Inventory (CMI). These inventories are being studied and adapted for

the context of Spain (Álvarez González et al. 1990, 1995, 2007).

Additionally, we must include the model by Holland (1973, 1985), which structures CM

along three determining factors: consistency, differentiation and congruence. This model

considers that a person is vocationally mature when he or she manifests a high degree of

consistency, differentiation and congruence in choosing a career. Empirical confirmation has

been sought using the Self-Directed Search (SDS), with its Catalan version “Quadern

d’orientació professional” (Bisquerra, et al. 1989; Corominas, 1989; Corominas, Álvarez

González & Bisquerra, 1999a) and Spanish version “Programa de orientación profesional

autoaplicado” (POPA) (Corominas, Álvarez González & Bisquerra, 1999b), in paper and

electronic formats.

This study focuses on the models by Super and Crites, in light of their greater influence

and because they offer reliable, validated instruments for diagnosis and assessment of CM. From

1987 until the present, they have been the object of study at different times and in different

contexts, and in this country in particular.

Developing career maturity

With regard to development of career maturity, both the Super and Crites models address

how the factors or dimensions of career maturity are paced and develop differentially across ages

and educational levels. In the case which concerns us, adolescence as the stage of maturity, and

Manuel Álvarez


secondary education as the academic period, the process of developing career maturity presents

the following characteristics:

a) The pace of development varies, it is not uniform across the different dimensions of age

or educational level. Certainly, greater development of career maturity takes places as the

subject grows older and reaches higher levels in education, although in some school years

the differences are barely perceptible. Different studies (Álvarez González, 1989;

Álvarez González et al. 1990, 1995, 2007; Jordaan & Heyde, 1972, 1979; Super &

Overstreet, 1960) confirm that the dimensions of information and decision making show

increasing development as age and years in school increase, and the exploration

dimension is what shows the least development. In particular, the study by Álvarez

González (1989) confirmed that development of career maturity over the years of

secondary education does not progress in a linear or uniform fashion during these ages

and school years; instead, it becomes stagnant at certain times.

b) The development of career maturity in adolescents has not reached the level required

for making career decisions with any assurance of success. Changes in career

development are not as substantial as one might have hoped; there are certain

“stoppages” in this development. In the section on proposals for improvement, we will

discuss deficient aspects are seen at this stage.

c) The stability of career maturity remains less than that of other traits or variables

which, while separate from career maturity, are related to it (intelligence, year in

school, self-concept, academic achievement, aspects of personality, ethnic group,

socio-economic status, career indecision, cognitive styles, etc.).

Consequently, it is difficult to make predictions as to the career maturity of students in

this developmental stage (adolescence) and educational stage (secondary), whether they are in

compulsory, post-compulsory or vocational training, since correlations of career maturity with

other variables are unsubstantial. The studies do not explain more than 25% of the variance, with

one exception, the recent study by Creed and Patton (2003), with a sample of 365 secondary

students from grades 8 to 12, where predicting variables were age, gender, family socio-

economic status, academic achievement and work experience. Together these variables

explained 52% of the attitudinal dimension of CM and 41% of the competency dimension

(Álvarez González et al. 2007). And studies have appeared which relate CM with emotional



competencies (Brown, George-Curran & Smith, 2003; Fraga, 2007; Vila & Pérez González,

2007). These studies show moderate correlations between emotional intelligence and CM.

By way of conclusion, career maturity is a development construct which matures with

age and years in school. However, this development is not uniform; in certain school years the

differences are minor. The factors or dimensions which show greater progression with age and

school year are information and decision making and career planfulness; however, what shows

the least progression is exploration of resources. All this confirms that the development of career

maturity in adolescence goes through phases of intense development, stagnation, and moderate

growth.

The characteristics of Super’s and Crites’s structural and developmental models can be

specified as follows:

They are multifactorial models that can be verified empirically, and differ only in the

number of factors and their representativeness

They show a moderate predictive value, that is, it is probable that people who are

vocationally mature make more realistic, stable decisions

For both models, career maturity is a developmental process which begins in early years

and continues throughout a person’s life stages.

Career maturity is a continuous process but not uniformly so. Its rate of development is

not constant.

The development process is partially irreversible, since once a person has pursued one

option of studies, it is difficult to discontinue that option without experiencing some

setback.

Diagnosing and assessing career maturity

In taking on the diagnosis and assessment of CM, one must be aware that this is not to be

exclusively a psychometric approach, based essentially on standardized tests; rather, other more

longitudinal procedures, focused on observation and self-exploration, must be used. The latter

will make possible a more comprehensive, global approach to diagnosis and assessment. Other

studies (Álvarez González et al., 2007) present one of the most popular models for CM

Manuel Álvarez


diagnosis, namely, the Career Development Assessment and Counseling model (CDAC) from

Super et al. (1992).

Under this model, the diagnostic process begins with an initial examination which col-

lects all available information about the student, mainly through interviewing. The interview

should be semi-directed, allowing students to express themselves freely (Stage I: Preliminary

examination). Next, a more in-depth examination of the main dimensions of career maturity is

carried out using different procedures, both quantitative and qualitative, using life-history

questionnaires, interviews and observation (Stage II: In-depth examination). A third stage

evaluates all the information that has been collected using qualitative and quantitative analy-

sis. This requires knowing how to analyze and integrate the information obtained through the

different procedures (Stage III: Evaluating all the information). The final stage involves a

guidance intervention to improve those dimensions that are deficient (planfulness, explora-

tion, information and decision making), by custom designing a career maturity program

(Stage IV: Guidance intervention).

This article will focus on the psychometric procedure for diagnosing and assessing ca-

reer maturity, in particular through the use of the CDI questionnaire by Super and the CMI by

Crites. These instruments assess the factorial structure and developmental component of CM,

based on the theoretical formulations of Super’s and Crites’ structural and developmental mod-

els.

Instruments for diagnosing and assessing career maturity

An exhaustive review of the primary instruments for diagnosing and assessing CM is

presented in Álvarez González et al. (2007). Here we will focus on those which have had greatest

impact: Super’s Career Development Inventory (CDI) and the Career Maturity Inventory (CMI).

Table 2 shows these instruments with their dimensions.

The two instruments do not diagnose or assess all the factors or dimensions of career

maturity of subjects in this developmental stage (exploration) and in this educational period

(secondary education); they focus on those dimensions which are easiest to measure and to

quantify. Thus, for example, Super’s CDI (Forms I and III) measure four of the five factors in the

theoretical model (planfulness, exploration, information and decision making), leaving out



reality orientation (self-knowledge, realism, consistency, crystallization, work experience).

Crites’ CMI measures two of the four factors (attitudes and competencies), excluding

consistency and realism of the vocational choice (it considers the process of career choice

without addressing content of the career decision).

Table 2. Dimensions, subdimensions and variables in the principal instruments for diagnosing and

assessing career maturity (Álvarez González et al., 1995, 2007).

CDI (Super) CMI (Crites)

Attitudinal

dimension

· Career planfulness:

- Application specificity

- Concern with the decision

- Definition of plans

- Information specialization

· Career exploration:

- Quality of potential sources

- Quality of sources used

· Attitudes:

- Involvement

- Guidance

- Independence

- Preference

- Commitment

Cognitive

dimension

· Career decision making

· Information on career development

· Knowledge of the work world

· Information on the preferred

occupation

· Competence:

-Problem solving

-Planning

-Goal-selection

-Self-appraisal

-Occupational information

The authors of these instruments are the first in recognizing that these measurements of

career maturity must be complemented by other measurements or instruments that allow for

more longitudinal evaluation. Recent studies (Álvarez González, et al. 2007; Levinston, et al.

1998, and others) recommend moderate use of these instruments, combined with other more

qualitative measures such as guidance, counseling and personal relating (interview, observation).

In summary, the use of a variety of evaluation techniques and resources (qualitative and

quantitative) which address different aspects of career maturity in a more global, comprehensive

fashion is recommended for assessing career development.

Manuel Álvarez


After these considerations, we select the CDI and CMI as useful tools for diagnosis and

assessment of career maturity, complemented by other procedures based on a more qualitative,

developmental approach.

Career Development Inventory (CDI) and Career Maturity Inventory (CMI) for

adolescents

The instruments most used in cross-cultural research are the CDI by Super and the CMI

by Crites. In Álvarez González et al. (2007), there is a detailed study of these two instruments

and their adaptation to the Spanish context under the names CDC and CMC. Their content and

structure are described below.

Content and structure of the CDC (Spanish version of the CDI) for adolescents

A series of studies have been carried out over more a decade (Álvarez González, 1989;

Álvarez González et al. 1990, 1995, 2007), designed for clarifying the construct of career ma-

turity and adapting the two instruments of measurement: CDI by Super et al. (1972) and CMI

by Crites (1978). The studies have focused specifically on validating these instruments for

diagnosis and assessment of career maturity in the Spanish context.

Although much remains to be done, these instruments are currently available for diag-

nosis and assessment of career maturity, and they are rooted in the theoretical formulations of

these development models. The purpose of these instruments is to: a) assess development of

career maturity at different ages in adolescence and youth; b) diagnose those areas or dimen-

sions where there are differences, and c) evaluate programs and see how well they have met

their objectives.

After a careful adaptation to the Spanish context (Álvarez González, 1989; Álvarez

González et al., 1990, 1995, 2007; Corominas, 1989; Salvador, 1981; Salvador & Peiró,

1986), the CDI questionnaire was reduced from 91 to 50 items (Table 3).

The instrument comprises three factors (career planfulness, resources for exploration,

information and decision making) with eight variables and 50 items. The first two factors

have an attitudinal dimension and the other has a competency dimension. Hereafter we will



refer to this questionnaire as the CDC, Cuestionario de desarrollo de la carrera. It can be

administered individually or collectively, requiring approximately 30 minutes for application

and about 15 minutes for correction. It is designed for students from 14 to 18 years of age,

and there are percentiles gauged for the different years of secondary education and for the

population in general. Application and correction norms are those typical of any standardized

questionnaire, and there is a response sheet and correction template.

Table 3. Content, structure and number of items in the CDC

Factors and variables Description Nº of

items

Planfulness:

Specificity of planning

Concern with choice

Definition of plans

Information specificity

This factor addresses the adoles-

cent’s degree of knowledge and in-

clination toward planning and choice

16

Resources for exploration:

Quality of potential sources

Quality of sources used

This factor assesses the quality and

effectiveness of the sources used in

exploration

17

Information and decision making:

Occupational information

Knowledge of the aspects of deci-

sion making

This factor assesses knowledge about

educational and occupational infor-

mation and knowledge of different

aspects of decision making

17

50

Content and structure of the CMC (Spanish version of the CMI)

An initial analysis of the questionnaire (Álvarez González et al., 1990) revealed the

need to reduce the attitudes subtest from its original 50 items to a total of 40, and reduce the

competencies subtest from 100 to 60 items, 30 of these corresponding to form A and 30 to

form B (Table 4).

Manuel Álvarez


Table 4. Content, structure and number of items in the CMC

Factors and variables Description Nº of

items

Attitudes:

1. Involvement in the choice pro-

cess

2. Orientation toward work

3. Independence in decision mak-

ing

4. Preference for career choice fac-

tors

5. Conceptions of the choice pro-

cess

Competency:

6. Self-appraisal

7. Occupational information

8. Goal selection

9. Planning

10. Problem Solving

. Extent of active participation in the

career choice process

. Extent of orientational tasks and atti-

tudes toward work and work-related

values.

. Degree to which an individual is self-

reliant in the decision making process.

. Degree to which an individual bases

his or her selection on a particular fac-

tor.

. Precise conceptions or traits of the

vocational choice process

. A person’s ability to judge the pros

and cons of his or her own vocational

satisfaction.

. Knowledge of the work world (trends,

attitudes, employment opportunities).

. Ability to make the best suited occu-

pational choice

. Understanding and planning a series

of steps in order to enter a certain oc-

cupation.

. Problem solving skill in vocational

decision making

40

30

70



The instrument incorporates two of the four factors of the theoretical model (attitudes

and competencies) and ten variables with 70 items. As with the previous questionnaire, the

CMI will now be referred to as the CMC, Cuestionario de madurez de la carrera. The compe-

tencies factor has Form A and Form B, which can be used interchangeably. It can adminis-

tered individually or collectively, requiring 40 minutes for application and 15 minutes for

correction. It is designed for students from 14 to 18 years of age, and there are percentiles

gauged for the different years of secondary education and for the population in general. As in

the former case, application and correction norms are those typical of any standardized ques-

tionnaire, and there is a response sheet and correction template.

In order to better match Spain’s multilingual reality, these instruments are presented

by Álvarez González et al. (2007) in the four official languages: Castilian Spanish, Catalan,

Basque and Galician (CD format).

Both questionnaires have undergone experimentation on several occasions, including

item analyses (reliability and homogeneity indices, etc.), reliability calculations and other

classic psychometric indices.

Intervention proposal for improving career maturity

Several studies to date (Álvarez González, 1989; Álvarez González, 2006; Álvarez

González, et al. 2007; Corominas, 1989; Salvador & Peiró, 1986; Sánchez Pérez, 2001; Valls,

1996) confirm a series of deficiencies in career maturity in secondary students:

They lack elements of reflection for better self-knowledge

They demonstrate little career planning in the short- and mid-term

They make limited use of and do not value resources for self-exploration and explora-

tion of their environment

They reveal a lack of information about studies, careers and occupations

They lack strategies for successfully approaching the decision making process

Finally, they show little connection to the work world and the roles that they will have

to exercise in the future.

Manuel Álvarez


Consequently, the following are aspects for improvement:

Encourage short- and mid-term career planning, taking into account the following: in-

terest in occupational tasks; concern with occupational choice; extent of information

about the career being considered, and extent of self-knowledge

Give special attention to resources for career exploration (using and appreciating their

value)

Provide access to information which exists in the social setting

Help them deal with the decision making process in its various dimensions: cogni-

tive, affective/emotional and social

Bring students closer to the work world, because they lack introspection and judg-

ment about the world of work.

These proposed improvements can be expressed in the following objectives:

Provide the student with strategies, information and resources they need to acquire

more objective self-knowledge

Be familiar with reference material that relates to orientation of one’s studies, career,

or occupation, and create search strategies for the type of information that the student

may have need of at any time

Help the student develop strategies and procedures for dealing with the decision mak-

ing process, not only in the cognitive dimension, but also in emotional and social di-

mensions.

Prepare students in the process of transitioning from the stage of education to the

world of work.

Help the student define and specify his career plan.

And these objectives could be developed through five areas of intervention (Álvarez

González et al., 2007):

Knowledge of self and others. Students must become aware of their potentiality: abili-

ties, aptitudes and skills, self-concept and self-esteem, personality, academic record,

educational and work experience, interests, level of ambition, motivation, values, life-



style, etc. All these characteristics should be congruent with their preferences.

Information on studies, professions and occupations. Students need not only infor-

mation about themselves, but also about the environment which they live in. They

need information about the different educational options (academic paths), profession-

al options (career paths) and occupational options (socio-labor paths). It is not so

much a matter of providing them with information, but rather for them to know how,

where and when to find it and then to make use of it.

The decision-making process. Throughout their personal, educational and professional

development, students are always making decisions. They should be prepared, during

their formative period, to carry out effective decision making. This requires the stu-

dent to engage in ongoing reflection about himself or herself, about others and about

the environment, throughout this educational period. Other studies address a compre-

hensive model for decision making (Álvarez González & Rodríguez Moreno, 2006).

Transition to the work world. The final years of secondary education should include

preparing students to cope effectively with their transition to the work world. They

need strategies which enable them to make best use of their education in the work

world, and they need to be familiar with employment paths.

My occupational plan. Students who begin vocational training or university prepara-

tion (Bachillerato) should begin to construct their own occupational plan, based on

their personal characteristics, their educational experience and their work experience,

if they have any. This occupational plan will give more meaning to what they are do-

ing, in the personal sense as well as educationally and occupationally.

By way of conclusion

From 1958 until the present, the CM construct has been the object of various studies

which have helped to clarify, delimit and develop its nature and content. Most of the early

studies were carried out within the context of such programs as the Career Pattern Study:

CPS programs by Super (1957); the Career Development Study: CDS by Gribbons and

Manuel Álvarez


Lohnes (1968); the Vocational Development Project: VDP by Crites (1961); Vocational Ma-

turity by Super and Overstreet (1960); Vocational Development by Jordaan and Heyde (1972,

1979); and Career Maturity by Álvarez González (1989), Álvarez González et al. (1990, 1995

y 2007), Corominas (1989), Salvador (1981) and Secadas (1974).

These studies have pursued a fundamentally three-fold objective: a) to clarify the con-

cept of CM and describe its structure from adolescence to adulthood; b) to develop and vali-

date different instruments for measuring CM; and c) to design intervention proposals for im-

proving CM.

As for the first objective, as was seen under other headings above, there has not been

agreement on the number of variables and dimensions which form the structure of CM. That

is to say, there is no well-defined taxonomy of variables and dimensions of CM. In particular,

studies by Álvarez González (1989); Álvarez González, et al. (1990, 1995, 2007); Salvador

(1981); Salvador and Peiró (1986) conclude that Super’s model of career maturity is

bifactorial (attitudes and competencies) and that Crites’s model has a unifactorial structure

(degree of career development). There need to be further cross-cultural studies which fine

tune the construct and its instruments of measure to the socio-cultural and educational charac-

teristics of each country. In considering CM as a developmental process, one concludes that:

development is not uniform, but it is continuous; the factors which show the greatest progress

with increased age and years in schooling are information and decision making, career

planfulness (Super) and competencies (Crites); less progress is found in career exploration

(Super) and attitudes (Crites); year in school is seen as a better predictor than age, and no sig-

nificant differences were found between genders.

As for the second objective, there are important limitations in the CDI and CMI for

measuring the main CM factors. The CDI addresses two factors (attitudinal and cognitive)

and the CMI only addresses one (degree of career development). In particular, factorial analy-

sis studies by Álvarez González et al. (1990, 1995) confirm a three-factor structure in the

CDC, accounting for 54.7% of the variability. However, factorial analysis applied to the CMC

confirms the results of other studies. There is no factorial structure in the competency subtest.

20 factors are obtained, on Form A as well as on Form B, which explain 57.3% and 57.5% of

the variance respectively, but they do not offer any item grouping which is coherent with the

dimensions of the questionnaire; thus we must speak of a single factor. Both questionnaires



show moderate reliability and validity. Validation was demonstrated using a sample of 3052

secondary students, from different Spanish provinces, between the ages of 12 and 18 years

and enrolled in 25 different schools. Reliability for the CDC, attitudes dimension, is 0.81, and

for the information and decision making dimension it is 0.53. On the CMC, the attitude di-

mension gives 0.72, and the competency dimension 0.81. Reliability coefficients are quite

acceptable, with the exception of the information and decision making dimension on the

CDC. Its validity, namely its concurrent validity, is acceptable.

This study has presented the career maturity construct as one of the main areas of ca-

reer development guidance, especially in secondary education, where students must constant-

ly make decisions for the purpose of selecting the most suitable educational and occupational

path. Students must be equipped with a series of competencies that allow them to effectively

cope with their own decisions.

However, there are still difficulties in validating the CM construct. These difficulties

focus particularly on the construct itself, due to its intercultural nature. There has yet to be a

true reconciliation between the theoretical and the empirical model, especially with regard to

structure, though the area of development is now indisputable. The other difficulty lies in the

instruments of measure: although they have undergone improvements, they still do not meas-

ure the main factors of CM. Their limitations with regard to factors or dimensions measured,

and their validity for specific contexts, must be recognized. Other procedures of analysis must

be used in order to complement these instruments. For example, the CMC measures two of

the four factors from the theoretical model and does not clearly express its bifactorial nature.

Studies confirm that the two instruments are complementary; they present similar subtests,

but they measure different aspects (Álvarez González et al., 2007)

Focusing our attention on the context of Spain, we recognize that these instruments

(CDC and CMC) have undergone enough factorial studies to confirm their full validity and

applicability to our context. Despite their limitations, they can be useful tools in diagnosing

the actual vocational maturity of secondary students, and later can be used to assess CM fol-

lowing an intervention.

The design, planning and execution of programs for improving career maturity require

a previous diagnosis, which enables needs analysis. The instruments presented in this study,

Manuel Álvarez


together with others, can be used toward this end. Results will assist in the detection of the

strong and weak points, providing a basis for designing an intervention plan.

This paper on career maturity intends to make a helpful contribution to guidance and

education professionals in secondary education.

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Manuel Álvarez


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